Slipknot

Like Kiss before them, only to the tune of nine band members, instead of four, Slipknot adopted frightening disguises to infuse their already overpowering music with additional layers of theatrical excess. Emerging out of the unlikely rock star breeding grounds of Des Moines, Iowa during the middle 1990s, Slipknot signed to Roadrunner Records and leveraged a shockingly abrasive eponymous album with show-stealing Ozzfest performances (both in 1999) to state there case for stardom. Initially seen as one of the key bands in the nu-metal movement, Slipknot successfully transcended the style when it fell out of commercial favor and went on to enjoy prolonged success into the third millennium, thanks to a punishing global touring regimen and subsequent albums like 2001’s ‘Iowa,’ 2004’s ‘Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), and 2008’s ‘All Hope is Gone.’ Two year later tragedy struck when band founder and bassist Paul Gray succumbed to a drug overdose, and another key founding member, drummer Joey Jordison, parted ways with the group in December of 2013, but Slipknot have continued on, releasing the new album '.5: The Gray Chapter' in 2014.